


I'm Always on Your Side

by Bear Works (Achrya)



Series: Bearmance [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Animal Transformation, Crack Treated Seriously, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Mystery, Romance Novel, Supernatural Elements, romance tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:51:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Bear%20Works
Summary: Keith knows a whole lot of nothing about his birth mother, other than she abandoned him and his father, and has no desire to learn more. But what he wants isn't what he gets and, just as he’s considering a break from his music career he learns his mother has in fact been trying to contact him his whole life, right up until her death. Needing to settle the estate she left in his name Keith travels to mysterious Ursa mountain with no idea of just how much his life is about to change.Not only is he not as human as he thinks, but he finds he isn’t as new to Ursa, or the charming handyman looking after his mother’s house, as he would have thought.





	I'm Always on Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> So. This is part of a project started in response to some harqualin-esq romance novels I read (with titles like Bear-llionare and Bear-lebrity, where wearbears/bear shifters fall in love with thicc ladies) that made me want to do my own tropey romance where bears fall in love with thicc gentlemen. It's actually part of a big crossover universe. You'll see characters from other fandoms and references to events happening in other stories, but you don't need to know those fandoms or read those stories to understand things (in fact feel free to pretend they're OCS). Everything you need to know for this one will be explained as we go, and Keith learns more, I promise. 
> 
> Also, enjoy Keith being stuck in a A/B/O story and not knowing it, lol.

Keith had imagined meeting his mother more times than he could count. When he was younger, and hadn’t yet learned to not mention her in front of his father but knew enough to be jealous of what the kids on TV had that he lacked, he’d pictured her coming home one day with open arms and a ready smile. He’d imagined her taking him to school and sports, camping and stargazing in the desert or woods near the house, cooking for and playing with him like the moms on tv. He’d been sure she could explain the weight in his chest when he looked outside the window at night, at the open expanses of sand and stars to one side and thick forest to the other, the reasons he wasn’t allowed to play with kids from school, and why they lived so far away from everything and everyone. 

When his father had died and Keith had been shuffled off into the uncaring, and often forgetful, system he’d imagined her busting in like a superhero, larger than life, strong, brutal, able to crush everyone who hurt him beneath her fist. She could come and save him and then take him away from the group houses, the cold foster homes, the tired and harried case workers, the annoyed teachers who said he was traumatized, difficult, withdrawn, violent, the therapists who labeled him depressed, anxious, and a half dozen other things. They’d leave all that behind, go to where she lived, and be done with his old life. 

When all that lead to a stint in the military and he found music and a measure of...something, among the ranks and in the cockpits of planes, he thought about her only when he put feelings to paper and pen. He didn’t think much about meeting her then, imagined he was too old and too over it for daydreams like that. It wasn’t going to happen, he had to accept that. She was gone, hadn’t cared enough to even show up when his dad had slowly withered and succumbed to cancer, and he didn’t care. Didn’t care that they hadn’t been good enough for her, didn’t blame himself for not being the son she wanted anymore (because that must have been it, right? If he’d been the kid she wanted she would have stayed) didn’t spare her, the shadowy faceless figure of the woman who’d give birth to him, time anymore.

(And if he imagined screaming accusations and demands for explanations in her face and spilled rage and hurt and longing all over paper like a not quite finished dam that was for him, and only him, to know. If he still burned inside when he thought about her, bitter and confused, he would never tell a soul.) 

When the military got rid of him and music took over, when he unexpectedly found success (and a makeshift family) with the Lions and started touring the world, he imagined her finding him, now that he had something to his name, and rejecting her. He wouldn’t say anything, would walk past or shut the door in her face, and would hope it ate away at her forever. He wouldn’t spare her the anger he told himself he didn’t have. 

Of all the things he’d imagined, all the scenarios and words he’d practiced again and again, and never once did he conjure up anything close to the reality. He blinked across the table at Coran, face creased in sympathy, over at Allura, sitting to his left with a warm hand on his shoulder, over to Hunk and Lance on the couch on the other side of the room, not yet aware of what was happening but glancing their way, picking up on the tension. 

“What? My mother...” 

Coran, more weird uncle or second father than manager most days, winced as if in pain. Coran was like that, too empathic, feeling too much on Keith’s behalf even when Keith could not. He was going numb, a prickling chill creeping through his insides, and Coran’s eyes were wet. “I’m sorry Keith. I’ve confirmed everything as best as I can through the lawyer and all of the documentation is legitimate and authentic. Your mother is...she passed away. Nearly 3 years ago.” 

It’s stupid how much it hurts, a tight squeeze around his chest and lungs, sharp twisting in his gut, breath lost as the weight of all those day dreams came down around him, and then nothing. Cold fog curled around him, muffling the world. Coran was talking but Keith didn’t hear a word, barely felt Allura’s hand rubbing him arm; it all faded into a din of nothingness. 

Dead. 

She was dead? His mother was dead. That was...that was it. He had no other family, would never know what happened, would never get the chance to tell her he’d  moved on and hadn’t needed her in the end. 

It was over, just like that. With a few words and no fanfare at all. 

Had been over, for years, and he just hadn’t known it.

\---

Her name was Krolia Mormora. She was, according to the bored looking lawyer, a park ranger and resident of Ursa Mountain. The picture that was waiting in the small, depressingly thin, manilla folder at the coffee shop he meets the lawyer at shows him a tall, thin woman holding a baby. Her eyes are squinted shut and her mouth parted in laughter. The baby in her arms is chubby, red faced, and wailing with little fists in the air. 

It’s the first picture Keith has ever seen of himself as a baby. It wasn’t as flattering as he would like. Lance, having volunteered as the moral support Keith absolutely hadn’t wanted, laughed and plucked it from his hands. 

“She looks like you.” Hunk, dragged along in Lance’s wake as he so often was, said with a look on his face that was part nervous and part amused. Keith considered it, her thin face, purple eyes, and dark hair, cut short and tipped in purple, and shrugged.

The lawyer for the estate, Kei Tsukishima, cleared his throat and, with yet another less than impressed look at Keith’s bandmates, gestured at the folder and the papers inside. “As I was saying. Krolia left everything in your name, including a considerable amount of land on Ursa Mountain and a home-” 

“Why?” Keith interrupted, steadfastly ignoring the lawyers sharp look. “Why would she leave me anything?” He couldn’t fathom it anymore this time than he had when he’d talked to Tsukishima on the phone; why would a woman who he hadn’t seen in over twenty years, who had abandoned him, want to leave him anything? Why not reach out and find him instead? 

“Leaving ones things to their children isn’t the sort of decision making I question in my clients.” Was the deadpan response. “It was this way when I took over her estate and had been for years before that, as far as I know. As such a large chunk of the Mormora holdings will be yours, once you come to the mountain and sign the paperwork.”

Keith shook his head, eyes dropping once again to the papers. Pictures, glossy satellite shots of some wooded area, topographical maps with swirls and colored lines that meant nothing to him, blueprints of buildings, a detailed list of items, information about safety deposit boxes, and money were all crammed into the pages in the folder. He’d looked at the stuff for about thirty seconds before his head started to pound and looking at it again just made it that more intimidating.

It was a lot. Not just in terms of how insane and sudden it was, but in terms of sheer physical amount. Land. Money. Pages of...stuff, of the things his mother had acquired and deemed worthy to keep (unlike her son, he thought bitterly) throughout her life. It was too much to take in, too much to be expected to deal with as some stranger who happened to have given birth to him. 

He couldn’t really be expect to just go along with this? Was it some sort of apology, for twenty some odd years of silence, because he didn’t want it, not any of it. 

“I don’t-”

“If you don’t wish to keep it you have family who will give you a good price, I imagine.” Tsukishima sat up a little straighter, eyes narrowing. “You’ll still need to claim it before it can change hands, and it will have to go to a mountain resident, per the bylaws in all property contracts for the area. Family is always preferred, especially since Krolia’s territory was towards the center of what the Mormora own. Breaking it up would be...frowned on.” 

Keith’s eyes widened, brain focusing not on the land but on what seemed...impossible to him. “Family?”

He’d only ever had his father growing up. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles or cousins. He had the band now, and had decided that was all the family he needed, not that he’d ever say that to them because they would never let him live it down, and now...there was family, on some mountain in the middle of absolutely no where. 

“The Mormora, yes. They’re one of the larger families on the mountain.”

Keith sat back in his chair, breathing out shakily. He looked down at his hands, saw they were shaking and folded them together in his lap. A mother and land and family, all this time- no, not a mother. And not a family really; they didn’t know him and might not want him around anymore than she had. Just more strangers. 

“Keith,” Lance started, using that ‘sad for you’ voice he’d been using all week, and had made Keith want to rip his hair out from day one. He didn’t need anyone feeling sorry for him, least of all the poster boy for healthy family dynamics. 

“I’ll sign it over. I don’t need anyone’s money.” He had more of that now than he’d ever thought he would have, and no idea of what to do with any of it. “You can send any paperwork to our manager and-”

“It has to be in person.” Tsukishima interrupted, again. Keith looked up through the fringe of his hair to find the blond frowning at him. “Even if it weren’t the way business is done on Ursa, it’s a requirement of your mother’s will. It must be in person, on the mountain, to accept and, if you desire, give to someone else.”

Keith scowled. Hunk shifted on the chair on his right. “Maybe you should go? It might be...nice? Meeting your family, I mean. Maybe they want to meet you? Someone had to hire that detective to find you, didn’t they?” 

That was true but it didn’t mean they wanted to meet him? They’d had years, even if just since his mother had died, to find him and he wasn’t exactly laying low. They were, at the risk of sound like an asshole, rock stars. Keith Kogan wasn’t a hard man to find these days and, as Hunk had pointed out, he looked enough like his mother that someone could connect the dots, but no one had.

For all he knew they just wanted the land Tsukishima said belonged to him now. 

“You’ll want to see this.” Tsukishima reached forward and flipped through the papers to the back of the stack and a single piece of lined paper, yellowed with age and ragged around the edges. Tight even script flowed across the page, neat letters that drifted not quite on the lines, rising and falling between them. 

_ Dear Yurak _

“Who’s Yurak?” Lance stage whispered. “And who would name someone that? It’s just mean.”

“Your friend is.” Frosty didn’t do justice to Tsukishima’s tone. “And he was named after his family’s founder, the first Mormoa m-patriarch, and original protector of Ursa Mountain.” 

“Oh.” Lance said. 

“Awkward.” Hunk whispered. 

Keith didn’t say anything, though he agreed with Lance. Had his father really agreed to name him ‘Yurak’? Ugh. 

_ Dear Yurak,  _

_ My cub. If you’re reading this the inevitable has happened and I’ve passed on before I could find you. I’m sorry, more sorry than you can ever know, that I’m not able to tell you everything you need to know about the world, our people, and yourself. I have looked for you since the day your father took you away from me-  _

“Shit.” Lance breathed. The paper crinkled as Keith’s fingers tightened around the edges. Took him? That...that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. His father had said, the one time Keith had gotten him to speak about his mother, that she had left them. He wouldn’t have lied. Not to Keith, not about something like this. 

_ And as much as I can understand why he did it, it’s something I can never forgive. Knowing that you are out there, without me and with no idea of who you really are, haunts me everyday. I can only hope my family and Shiro will continue to look for you, and bring you home where you belong, after I am gone.  _

_ It’s much harder to find a boy named Yurak Mormora than you would think. _

_ There is more to say than I could ever fit into a letter, no matter how many words I was to use. It would never be enough to make you understand how much I care and have missed you. It would take a lifetime, but believe if you return to the mountain, and our home, it will speak for me and the questions you must have will be answered. _

“For what it’s worth,” Tsukishima said when Keith looked up, eyes burning and chest painfully right. “There’s been a group of private detectives on the estates retainer and, I believe, they’d been working for your mother for years. I have the documentation, if you’d like to see it.” 

Looking for him, for years. He couldn’t...that couldn’t...why? Why would his father lie? Or was his mother lying? Was her lawyer lying for her now? Would he forge proof, hire detectives to lie if Keith wanted to speak to them? 

And to what end? Did he make more money if Keith showed up and took everything? Did that make sense? Then again nothing was making sense so why should this?

He felt like he was coming into a story or movie but had already missed huge chunks. He didn’t understand the plot or why anyone was doing what they were doing. 

Keith hated not knowing what was going on. 

“You can take your time and think things over.” Tsukishima said, glancing down at his watch. “I have another meeting today but you have my number.” 

\---

Keith decided to go. Alone, much to outrage of Lance and concern of Allura, and with strict orders to call nightly and give them all the details. Even if he’d wanted them to come along, which he didn’t, it wouldn’t have been possible. Ursa Mountain, and the neighboring town of Ursine, had one tiny airport and only private charter flights could get in or out, and all had to be approved by the town council, but only residents and family were approved. Even Keith was getting in with Tsukishima vouching for him. 

Apparently dead mothers didn’t count for much against being a twenty year outsider. 

Ursa was a private community, more private than Keith had thought possible. There was almost nothing about it on the internet, save the most basic of census data, and attempts to poke deeper were met with walls and static at every turn. The town of Ursine was a little more open but, in the end, tiny and boring. The most exciting thing to happen there was the town voting to open up to tourists and start building resort facilities to make use of the natural hot springs, ski slopes, hiking, and scenery, and none of that was all that exciting. 

They didn’t even have a Starbucks in town.  

There wasn’t much choice if he wanted to know more and, he realized, he did want to know so there he was, three weeks later, stepping off of the tiny plane and onto the runway, into the chilly afternoon mountain air, behind Tsukishima. There had been others on the plane, other local men returning home for various reasons (family and family business seemed to be at the core of everything. Even Tsukishima had admitted, grudgingly, that his brother was having his first child soon and he wanted to be there for it. When Keith had offered his congratulations to the brother and his wife he'd gotten an oddly blank look before the blond had nodded and muttered a 'thank you') and there were people waiting just off the runway, small groups and idling cars. 

“Ah, Shiro is here.” Tsukishima said, beelining for an older looking pickup truck and the tall man leaning against it. 

Tall and, Keith noted with more interest than he should, attractive. Pale, almost platinum, hair in a shaggy undercut, dark eyes, tanned skin, strong square jaw. His face was scarred, across the nose most prominently, but other small lines marred his skin. Big all over: wide shoulders, broad chest that his shirt was stretched tight over, wide hips, strong looking thighs in tight jeans and, hmm, maybe he should stop blatantly checking the guy out.

It wasn’t like him to just start drooling over someone, he didn’t date much and liked it that way, but the closer they got to the waiting man the harder he found it to not look. Stare. 

Eyefucking might have been accurate, and not okay. He was here to settle his dead mother’s affairs, and figure out what the hell had happened with his parents, not get stupid over some guy. 

“Shiro.” Tsukishima said, offering a hand to the man. “Thanks for agreeing to all this.” 

The hand that clasped the blond’s was gunmetal gray, polished and sleek. Keith looked, blinked, then looked away quickly, hoping his surprise wasn’t noticed. 

“No problem Kei.” The man smiled, a small curve of lips and brightening of eyes. Keith’s heart did something that boarded on traitorous. “I can take it from here.” 

Kei nodded and, with a promise to call once he was settled, turned to jog towards a waiting car. Leaving Keith alone. With  _ Shiro. _

“Uh.” 

“You’ve gotten...taller.” Shiro said, eyes scanning Keith from head to toe and back. 

Keith’s eyebrows jumped up. “You know me?” 

“Oh.” Shiro’s smile dropped. “You wouldn’t remember, would you? You were...it’s been a long time. I’m Takashi, your cousin, but Shiro is fine. I’ve been taking care of your mother’s house since she passed.”

Cousin? 

Why was that so disappointing?  

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you are cringing and going 'cousin' right now and I'm just gonna say 'relax, don't worry, stick with me'.


End file.
